


richter

by karples



Series: A&B Sides [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Poetry, Slam Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:12:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karples/pseuds/karples
Summary: After every death, there must be life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> on the nature of daylight, max richter.
> 
> tw: discussion of death, depression, suicide/suicidal ideation, homophobia.

B (Spoken):

 

Listen if I didn’t weep then I’d explode  
If I have to die it’s not because I’m out of control  
but because I’m in a world where I feel I have none  
If I didn’t write my eulogy beforehand, arrange for  
my own white hearse and white ash, they’d lie  
about how I lived. They’d spin me into a ghost  
story to haunt the present, a cautionary tale any  
stranger voice could sing

 

//

 

From the tip jar: You cannot make  
another body your home. Long ago  
people used to shit and eat and die  
where they lived, and that is what  
you must do. You must shit and eat  
and die where you live. You must  
make your body your home, or else  
it will only ever be your grave.

 

//

 

(A confession:)

They said I was sick but they weren’t talking about the time bomb  
in my head. Spent their whole lives pulling at that fucking pin and  
they were surprised when I self-destructed on I-5, _please_. Captain Hook,  
meet crocodile tears. Nasty road rash like a trail of ground red’n’black  
berries ‘cross my skull and bones, burst veins welling under the skin  
like magma. Oh, babe, babe, my crooked heart, my arrow in the flesh, you know  
I once dreamed I was happy? I dreamed myself so light I flew and  
left my skeleton behind. Glided into the arms of the painted lady bound  
to the bow of a ship, and she said, _If you’re searching for your resting place_  
_look no further than home._ If only I had directions. If only the compass  
would point to the north instead of the noose. Ma said I picked my poison  
but I’d rather die than drink the one of her choosing. Confessed to a friend  
how the mermaids sank me without a single song, and she said, _You’re on_  
_your own_ , so I guess even the mouths of reptiles are more willing  
to embrace me whole. Overseas relatives insisted, _In Neverland everyone_  
_is free, including lost children like you_ , and yet they won’t let me forget  
how I was born there, how I’ll die there, unless they’ve got something  
to say about my victim complex. Shit, they’ve all got their opinions  
about the way I live, it's like all I own is my death: the tickle of a premolar  
in my throat, the ambulance wailing its siren warning, winking amber  
glass and bike keys clutched tight like they’d unlock within me  
some secret unshrouded life. What do they know of a woman whose chest  
is as much a cemetery for her convictions as it is a cavity for a feeling  
she hesitates to name? Love, my love, I flatlined. Boomeranged back  
to the frigid body where I’d buried myself, awoke on a stretcher  
with the memory of your eyes, so strange and vivid I thought it  
a hallucination. _A miracle!_ the medic said. ‘Course not. Women like us,  
we know after every death there must be life.

 

//

 

(In good humor):

 _So you came back._ Yeah, I came back. _Of your own volition?_ Who else’s? _Is there no god with the power to call you back?_ Well, no goddess. _I’m sorry, I didn’t mean --_ No, no, I’m messing with you. I saw your phone screen, she’s -- _Oh, no, we’ve broken. Broken up._ Crap, sorry. _No, it’s okay._ (beat) Women like us have to hope for more life, you know? Always. No goddess, only life. _So you could call this an afterlife._ Yeah, I could call this an afterlife. _And you could call, before that --_ Dying. En route to death. _I -- yes. I suppose._ (beat) It was like having no fear. _Really?_ Truly. _And even before that --_ I guess it must’ve been a life, but now I remember it like a half-life. _A ghost life._ Yeah. _The rhythm of your heart must have changed._ Yeah, it did. _How -- disorienting._ You want to feel it? _But my hands are cold._ Are you ashamed? _No. No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not of this._ Hey, it’s okay. (beat) _Is that an earthquake?_ That’s, I’m -- _Shh. It’s all right. Home to an earthquake._ That’s a life. _How -- lovely._ Really? _Truly. Truly lovely._

 

//

 

And all I mean to say is -- I thought we must crave in others what we are naturally empty of ourselves, and loathe in others what we possess in spades, and not the kind that shovels earth. But then I discovered in the women I loved and touched a reciprocal wonder, a reciprocal yearning, and I realized what I long for has nothing to do with what I am not, and everything to do with what I am


End file.
